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Flags which do not need consent

The recent changes allow a wider range of national, sub-national, community and international flags.

The full list of flags that do not require consent are:

(a) Any country’s national flag, civil ensign or civil air ensign;

(b) The flag of the Commonwealth, the European Union, the United Nations or any other international organisation of which the United Kingdom is a member;

(c) A flag of any island, county, district, borough, burgh, parish, city, town or village within the United Kingdom;

(d) The flag of the Black Country, East Anglia, Wessex, any Part of Lincolnshire, any Riding of Yorkshire or any historic county within the United Kingdom;

English flag bunting

(e) The flag of Saint David;

(f) The flag of Saint Patrick;

(g) The flag of any administrative area within any country outside the United Kingdom;

(h) Any flag of Her Majesty’s forces;

(i) The Armed Forces Day flag.

The flags of St George and St Andrew are recognised as the national flags of England and Scotland, but the flags of St David and St Patrick are listed separately as they do not necessarily fall into the category of a country’s national flag.

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What about flying flags on cars?

The issues to consider about driving with flags attached to the car are,

Vision - does the flag obscure the driver or any others drivers vision of the road?

Could it be classed as an insecure load, i.e. likely to come off and cause damage/injury?

The size of the flag - a normal flag (usually about the size of A4 paper) would not normally cause any problems but obviously the larger the flag the more potential for problems.

There is an offence of having a mascot/emblem on the car that, if the vehicle were to collide with someone, the mascot would strike them and cause injury. If the mascot is not likely to cause injury to a person by reason that it may bend, retract or detach itself from the vehicle then no offence would be committed.

So, although there is not a specific offence, you could commit an offence by having a flag on your car. It is the officer's discretion whether or not to take matters further if he/she feels that an offence has been committed.